


Ittar

by avani



Category: Jodhaa-Akbar (2008)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 20:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14119992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: When she leaves her home, Jodhaa expects to long for her mother’s embrace, her father’s slow smile, Sujamal’s rare chuckles. The smells and even the stenches of her childhood don’t even occur to her as something she might miss, but miss them she does.





	Ittar

**Author's Note:**

> For AllegoriesinMediaRes, who prompted _Jodhaa, Fumificate_. Obviously, this got a little off-topic.

When she leaves her home, Jodhaa expects to long for her mother’s embrace, her father’s slow smile, Sujamal’s rare chuckles. The smells and even the stenches of her childhood don’t even occur to her as something she might miss, but miss them she does. 

Her rooms in Agra, Salima tells her excitedly, have been carefully cleaned in anticipation of their new mistress. All that means is that they are devoid of anything familiar-- not the spices from the kitchens, not her father’s preferred scent of sandalwood, not the stables Sujamal would take her to in secrecy. 

Her husband sends her perfume in delicate glass bottles, each more precious than the last. Here, says Salima, are the essence of roses, a solution of cinnamon, a tincture of myrrh imported all the way from the West! She smiles expectantly, plainly waiting for Jodhaa to express her undying gratitude for such luxuries, but:

_ I cannot be bought for a mere whiff of air _ , Jodhaa reminds herself, and asks that the vials be put away.

(She does not think about another vial, smaller and more deadly, still stored at the bottom of one of her trunks.)

She does not sleep well her first night in Agra, walking often, always to the knowledge that she is far from home. It is not until the next morning, when she lights her lamp and her incense in preparation for her morning prayers that the smoke wisps around her face, and her eyes well up from how it reminds her of home. 

When she takes her  _ puja _ tray and spreads the sacred smoke around her rooms, it is as much to scent her chambers with this one remnant of home as to share the blessings of her Lord. Her husband watches curiously, and nods when she stammers an explanation.

“The Sufis worship with scents,” he notes, “and the Prophet himself praised perfume. He meant it, I think, to perfect the mind as it does the body.” He smiles at her, as though he desires her opinion on the subject as eagerly as he does those of his  _ mullahs _ , and Jodhaa remembers the perfume bottles he had sent her when she had first arrived.

When she is exiled, and returns to Amer as she had once wanted--hadn’t she?--the world seems wrong. The spices too sharp, the saffron too strong, the  _ sambrani _ not prepared as she expects. Or--not wrong, not entirely, but incomplete. 

Even after she returns to Agra at last, days go by before she re-enters her chambers, days spent caring for her husband. She expects they will be just as stark and scentless as before, but one step over the threshold shows her how wrong she was.

Salima smiles when she exclaims at this. “It was the Emperor’s orders,” she says, “that even in your absence, that incense be wafted throughout your rooms as before.”

“Thank you,” Jodhaa says faintly, and dismisses her. It is a comfort, and considerate of her husband to have remembered, but--it is somehow not enough, not quite. 

Alone at last, or as close to it as she can be, she takes up the long-discarded perfume bottles and opens one at random. 

The smell of jasmine fills the air, sharp and sweet, not unlike those her husband cast upon her during their swordfight. Jodhaa closes her eyes, sniffs, and finds herself come at last home. 

**Author's Note:**

> * The Mughals _loved _perfume, to a ridiculous amount. They were pivotal in popularizing and spreading the industry throughout India, and Akbar was no exception.  
>  * The link between Sufism and perfume is one of the facts I discovered when researching the topic above. Akbar is so associated with Sufism--and plus, it gives a far more personal meaning to his gifts--that I adopted it gleefully. However, if anyone with more personal experience needs to correct my misunderstanding of this religious practice, please let me know!  
> * A _sambrani _is that smoke-containing object used to scent Jodhaa's hair during "Jashn-E-Bahara"____


End file.
